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Luna found guilty of Brown's killings
Chicago Tribune ^ | May 11, 2007 | Carlos Sadovi and Azam Ahmed

Posted on 05/11/2007 8:00:54 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement

Jurors deliberated just one day before finding Juan Luna guilty Thursday of killing seven people in a Palatine Brown's Chicken restaurant in 1993, bringing a swift and tearful end to a 14-year wait for victims' families.

As the guilty verdicts were read, family members of the victims clutched one another and prayed. Luna sighed heavily. He removed his wire-frame glasses to wipe tears from his face with a white napkin.

Luna, 33, was convicted after a 14-day trial in Cook County Criminal Court that repeatedly told—and showed—how the victims were found shot and stuffed in a cooler and freezer."This is what he deserves, to be found guilty. It seems like a resolution," said Jessica Nellsen, whose father, Marcus, was killed. "I've grown up without a dad since I was 5. This can't bring back my childhood."

(Excerpt) Read more at chicagotribune.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: browns; chicken; illinois; luna
This has been a notorious case. A major verdict in favor of the families; maybe it'll be the ultimate verdict.
1 posted on 05/11/2007 8:00:58 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
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To: MassRepublicanFlyersFan

14 years to bring this to trial?

Was he locked up that whole time?


2 posted on 05/11/2007 8:03:25 AM PDT by Bigh4u2 (Denial is the first requirement to be a liberal)
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To: MassRepublicanFlyersFan

And thanks to RINO George Ryan, Illinois no longer uses the death penalty.


3 posted on 05/11/2007 8:08:24 AM PDT by proudpapa (Forget Rudy McRomney it's Duncan Hunter in '08!)
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To: proudpapa
This is in the article, though:

The jury was excused for the evening and was told to return to court Monday to begin deciding whether Luna would receive the death penalty. His friend, James Degorski, 34, is awaiting trial.

4 posted on 05/11/2007 8:10:49 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
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To: MassRepublicanFlyersFan

... and if just one of the victims had a gun .... oh, I forgot, it’s the safe, gun free zone of Chicago ....


5 posted on 05/11/2007 8:11:34 AM PDT by SkyDancer ("There Are Two Theories To Arguing With Women. Neither One Works")
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To: Bigh4u2

Justive sure is swift here in the good old USA.


6 posted on 05/11/2007 8:12:12 AM PDT by Piquaboy (22 year veteran of the Army, Air Force and Navy, Pray for all our military .)
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To: MassRepublicanFlyersFan

Sorry bout the misspelling of Justice in that post. I know I would hear about it.


7 posted on 05/11/2007 8:13:22 AM PDT by Piquaboy (22 year veteran of the Army, Air Force and Navy, Pray for all our military .)
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To: Bigh4u2
No, that is what made this case intriguing. 2002 was the big break and this is how it happened -- from the article:

To link Luna to the crime, prosecutors put Anne Lockett and Eileen Bakalla, high school friends of Luna's and Degorski's, on the stand. They testified separately that they knew about the crimes soon after they occurred in 1993 but kept quiet until 2002.

Bakalla testified that she picked the men up hours after they allegedly committed the murders and did drugs with them later that night. She said she took $50 from Degorski and heard the men talking about the crimes. She said she feared Luna, who she said gave her the "heebie-jeebies."

Luna's defense lawyers questioned why the women waited so long to come forward and attempted to depict them as drug addicts whose histories were so unstable that they could not be believed. To cast doubt on Luna's confession, his lawyers played a 1999 videotaped confession from a Mt. Prospect man who never was charged. A Cook County prosecutor who worked on the case testified that they never believed the Mt. Prospect man, who claimed to have a "vision" about the crime, because of conflicting details he gave and because evidence did not support it. 'This is justice, finally' Luna's lawyers called his brother Jorge and his sister Brenda, who testified that police purposely hid him away after arresting him May 16, 2002. By the time they saw Luna the next day, he had given the confession, they testified.

8 posted on 05/11/2007 8:13:29 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
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To: Piquaboy

Not from meee. (I mean me).


9 posted on 05/11/2007 8:14:12 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
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To: Bigh4u2
14 years to bring this to trial? Was he locked up that whole time?

No, they only found out who did it and made the arrests in the last few years.

10 posted on 05/11/2007 8:14:13 AM PDT by 68skylark
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To: Piquaboy

14 years then whammo, a swift one day. Make yer head spin clean off.


11 posted on 05/11/2007 8:14:38 AM PDT by Ieatfrijoles ("Some hams hanging in the kitchen were taken out for burial")
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To: MassRepublicanFlyersFan

Who'da thought a dingbat like Luna could pull of the Avada Kedavra curse.....

12 posted on 05/11/2007 8:15:05 AM PDT by r9etb
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To: MassRepublicanFlyersFan

This adds to it but I'm not signing up to the Chigago Tribune.

ahistory of the case

13 posted on 05/11/2007 8:16:02 AM PDT by the_daug
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To: SkyDancer
.. and if just one of the victims had a gun .... oh, I forgot, it’s the safe, gun free zone of Chicago ....

Actually Palatine is a suburb. Not sure of their gun laws.

14 posted on 05/11/2007 8:20:13 AM PDT by DonnDe
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To: the_daug

bugmenot.com


15 posted on 05/11/2007 8:28:21 AM PDT by rednesss
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To: MassRepublicanFlyersFan

In Illinois, he could earn the death penalty and still die and old man.

They haven’t offed anyone in years.


16 posted on 05/11/2007 8:36:14 AM PDT by proudpapa (Forget Rudy McRomney it's Duncan Hunter in '08!)
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To: DonnDe
I think there’s something like a thirty mile ring around Chicago .... plus the governor wants to make the whole state gun free ....
17 posted on 05/11/2007 4:22:42 PM PDT by SkyDancer ("There Are Two Theories To Arguing With Women. Neither One Works")
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To: 68skylark; MassRepublicanFlyersFan

Thanks for the info.

Makes more sense now.


18 posted on 05/11/2007 4:51:05 PM PDT by Bigh4u2 (Denial is the first requirement to be a liberal)
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